I suppose most people reading this is familiar with Abdul Goldberg. If not, let me Google that for you. A while ago, the Emporium of Rogue Dreams (on Facebook, that) joined in a collective challenge to create our own visions of Abdul Goldberg. I must be honest and say, this isn’t really my vision of Goldberg… it’s a bunch of stuff that I managed to fit together and shoehorn into the assignment. It’s ONE interpretation of Abdul Goldberg. I could make many more. So… who is this Goldberg, then?

It’s simple, Paulie. Hand over the datafax and nobody gets hurt.

Abdul Goldberg, huh? Let me tell you, that guy is as oldschool as they come! He’s been around as far as I can remember – but don’t let the outrageous clothing and graying beard fool you. Goldberg is not to be trifled with! While not completely without scrouples, in his days he have widowed more than he have wed. Those guys all had it coming… mostly.

I’ve always said it’s a blessing he’s a good guy at heart. It’s more than can be said about that green beast perched on his shoulder. What kind of freak gyrinx have wings?! An evil, vicious, insidious and utterly soulles bastard of a gyrinx, that’s what kind.

Gotta say though – since he settled down on McKemmler IV it seems like Goldberg found some sort of peace. We don’t run accross him as much, his crew isn’t jacking shipments or blasting other outfits the way they used to. I don’t know – maybe he’s planning something big, rumour has it he’s working with The Blacksmith… or against him. Blazes, I even heard some people claim that Abdul Goldberg is the freaking Blacksmith. Ha!

So there you have it kid. Goldberg… nobody knows where he’s from, and right now it seems nobody but he knows where he’s going. Exciting times, huh?!

An aging space scoundrel enjoying a space cigar…

With not much of the deadline left when I started the task, I first opted for a classic Rogue Trader figure without any conversion work… but I have had this idea about converting up this Reaper Bones pirate into a rogue trader. I thought he’d fit just fine as an Abdul and sat down outside with a cigar and my (rather paltry) bitz box.

The first few rough steps.

It started with a Reaper Bones Barnabus Frost model (see top left above). To space him up a bit, I figured he could use some Space Marine legs so out came the 90s marines I haven’t been able to flog for more than a year (top right). A few cuts and snips, and I found myself with the beginnings of a slightly dismembered rogue trader. To see if it’d work, I used (white) blu-tac and a RTB01 beakie for reference (bottom right above). I was pretty satisfied with where I had gotten in about an hour’s time (which mostly consisted of humming and hawing).

Finished conversion work.

I then continued with adding bits and pieces, and I even got to break out the green stuff. I’m not very experienced with green stuff so it’s always a bit disconcerting. But things turned out pretty fine… Here’s a run-down of the other parts used: The sword blade of an Hero Quest goblin, a plasma pistol and a power sword hilt from the old Ork Heavy Weapons sprue, and a bat-winged cat from Axiom/Jon/Beastface Miniatures. Finally I greenstuffed a cigar, knee pads, some details on the sword and a handguard to strengthen the joint where sword blade met hilt and hand.

The finishing touch to the competition entry was to stat the guy up in Rogue Trader. It was pretty straight forward stuff. As I’m not a grizzled veteran of RT, I only used what I could see on the model – with the exception of some smoke grenades that I figure old Abdul carries in his fanny pack if ever he needs to hastily abscond with some loot or other.

Yeah, I know – it’s not “legal” with a Cool of 10 if the model isn’t a psyker. I’m pretty sure Abdul don’t care, and neither should you…

I bought this angel quite a few years ago, in 2012 to be exact. Now, three years later I have finally managed to paint it! It’s not a model intended for gaming, but actually a present for my cousin who collect angel figurines. She have been ill for a while so I wanted to paint her an angel as a way of showing that I think of her even if we don’t talk often.

Mmmm… glossy.

The model is a Reaper Dark Heaven “Angel of Mercy” sculpted by Sandra Garrity. I can’t say I enjoyed painting it much, and the face is a little chunky and weird. The gloss varnish didn’t do the paintjob any favours either… Regardless, I’m happy to have it done as it hopefully will be a treasured addition to my cousin’s collection and it feels good to have that monkey off my back. I no longer have any obligations to finish models for a third party, it’s just me and my lead mountain now!

Vintage Citadel models of the 80s are often costly and it can be hard to find the particular models you need to finish a regiment or special project. A wonderful thing then, that many then-contemporary miniatures from other companies are still in production – and often quite cheap!

Several of the old Citadel sculptors did work for other companies around the same time and they are usually highly compatible with the corresponding ranges from Citadel. Some of these ranges are still in production today, and I decided to do a list of what can be had and where. So, let’s have at it. It’s loosely based on my list of cheap metal miniatures over on Lead Adventure Forums. but I’ve organized the lists by sculptor.

First out is Bob Olley. One of my favourites, but not as dear to others. He has been very prolific during the years, and this is not a full coverage of what he have done or even what’s available now. That being said, I did spend the better part of a saturday putting this together!

Mega Miniatures
This is probably my favourite lead vendor of today. Unfortunately they’ve sold off their fantastic Julie Guthrie Grenadier range (beautiful minis, albeit a tad small) but they’ve kept the best part: close to a complete Metal Magic/Hobby Products Fantasy range as it was when they closed shop in the mid 90s. Most of the range is sculpted by Josef Ochmann, with some models by Michael Immig (of White Dwarf fame). While none of them have a connection to Citadel, the models work perfectly scale wise with 80s Citadel and the style is close to Aly Morrison or Perry’s early Empire fighters.

It also includes a few war machines, but those molds were sold by Mega a year or two ago. More on that further down the list. The price per dwarf is $2, and a package deal is offered with all 24 different sculpts for the very decent asking price of $40! Add to that the fact Mega charges a flat rate of $7 for shipping, regardless of order size or destination in the world. In addition they’re both fast and friendly; and in my experience the casts are excellent quality!

In addition to the dwarves, there are a few centaurs also by Olley. Nowhere near as nice as the dwarves, but still pretty neat models and it’s hard to find cheaper metal centaurs that look as good. I’ve bought a few to use as chaos centaurs.

Centaurs. Images courtesy of Mega Miniatures

Finally we have two variants of beastmen; one based on boars and the other on rams. I don’t own any of these myself yet so can’t comment on how well they compare to the 80s beastmen Olley did.

The models listed as Large Ogres and Hill Orcs are different combinations of the Ogre and Uruk codes from Folio. Interestingly, some Uruk are sold at £4 for one, while some Ogres are sold at £4 for two.

Ogre Necromancer. Image courtesy of SHQ Miniatures

Apart from Olley’s ogres and orcs, there are various other intersting tidbits. Some rather bland looking elves and dwarves, but also a few highly attractive hooded cultists at £7 for a set of 5 different sculpts. No idea who sculpted those though!

Ral Partha Europe
A plethora! And I’m not kidding either. Bob did chaos marauders, dwarves, goblins (very nice too!), plenty of ogres and trolls. He also did some harpies that would mix very well with his trio of Citadel harpies but unfortunately they seem to be long OOP. As with Reaper, they are a bit expensive but when buying packs the price is about £1.50 – £2.50 for an infantry model. Some of the trolls are rather cheap with some costing less than £3, and the goblin chariot is priced just right at £13 for a chariot drawn by two wolves and sporting four rather spiffing crew.

Troll. Image courtesy of Ral Partha Europe

Reaper
Reaper have a lot of Olley sculpts, but as with most of Reapers models they’re more RPG minis than unit filling wargaming models of a uniform cut. There are a few lovely beasties and demons though, and also dirt cheap orcs in Bones plastic. As always with Olley, there’s also a good selection of dwarves. Some rather imperial looking dwarves, and some miners. Unfortunately, Reaper aren’t exactly cheap.

Vulture demon. Image courtesy of Reaper Miniatures.

Armorcast
Armorcast purchased some of the old Metal Magic molds from Mega Miniatures a few years ago. I’ve ordered from them and must say I wasn’t impressed with the casts compared to those I got from Mega. Still, they have some key models in the Chaotic Dwarf range as well as the two artillery pieces Bob did for Metal Magic.

Dwarf bombard. Image courtesy of Armorcast.

Olley have done a lot more work, of course – but nothing that I felt was worth covering in detail here. In particular give his work for Essex a miss. Bobblehead-a-bonanza! For a rather comprehensive catalogue of his work, go check out the Collecting Olley wiki.

That’s it for now. Next time, I’ll do something a bit shorter. Like a double feature on Mark Copplestone and Jes Goodwin. After that I’ll tackle the insanely productive (and itchy footed) Kev Adams. Let me know if there’s any other sculptor who did work on the side similar to what they did for Citadel.

On the painting front I can say things are moving forward, albeit slowly. I’ve finished the four chaos warriors for my vanilla chaos Blood Bowl team. Currently working on three beastmen. So that’s six finished models so far in 2013.

I normally don’t do musing blurbs on what’s going on in the online realm of miniatures but the Reaper Kickstarter really needs a bit of plugging. Go support Reaper’s Bones Kickstarter – now! For $125 (or just $100 if you’re in the US) you get an ungodly amount of knobrot miniatures!

Look at all that un-lead!

Seriously. Even I, who don’t much like the style of Reaper models, am going to pledge. At this time, you get just over 100 models for your $100, and the amount is ever increasing. I’ve been following how things progress over the last few days and I’m getting damn excited. DAMN EXCITED I TELLS YOUS! Yes, in caps. I’m even telling my wife and friends (none of which could care less) about this. They nod, tilt their heads and say “mhm… Anyways…” – but I don’t care. I’m so excited. I just can’t hide it. See? Pointer Sisters, damnit!